The other day I was working on edits to my first novel and it dawned on me;

Having written articles and short stories, flash fiction and creepy little ditties, how to's, film reviews and two novellas; designed, edited and produced a video or two; played around with a horror talk show and dabbled in radio; have created a few horrific characters, including a corrupted clown called Wee Willie Wicked; designed and created the Staying Scared web ring...but had never written a full-length novel...until now.

Oh, there's been more than a few pieces finding ways into magazines or anthologies and the stack of rejection slips grows yet taller, faster...but that's okay because you know what they call a writer that never gives up? Published, and of all those bricks being trod upon, one's bound to find a loose one or two or twelve or twenty three or...you get the picture.

Along the way I learned that a a correspondent covering neighborhood news pieces and on occasion penning a feature or two just didn't scratch the itch. I preferred fiction, horror fiction. Of course, that's not to say I don't write in other genres, because I do, but horror is a first love.

I also learned that the job thing will always get in the way...but hey, there's something to be said about roofs over heads and bellies being full.

Life is full of yellow brick roads and hurrying is no way to enjoy the journey...

In Liberal, Kansas, at the real Dorothy's House where the home scenes from The Wizard of Oz were filmed, a tour is included and touching where the yellow brick road starts, I oddly couldn't think of anything creepy. I did, however, wonder where the red road went.